


The Drowned Phoenician

by venilia



Series: Wasteland Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Post Marauders Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venilia/pseuds/venilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then eventually (inevitably) there is one night when he is maybe not as pissed as usual, and Sirius is just standing there staring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Drowned Phoenician

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't part one, so much as option one. If you've even been prescribed glasses, and looked through the parascope-shaped machine as the doctor said, "A.... or B?" and clicked the lenses up and down, the idea is similar. This is A.

It goes like this:

Remus Lupin loves a boy named Sirius Black, but he can’t tell him this, doesn’t dare tell him this, because he suspects that just maybe Sirius loves him in return. So he says nothing and does nothing, but thinks a lot about doing both and almost… but then comes that horrible night that for him is full of pain and fear and _ripriprip the human boy’s flesh, tearhimtobits, crunchhisbones!_ and then a stag, and the human is gone and _tearteartear his own flesh because he reallyabsolutlymust have blood_ and then morning and _No! Sirius, what have you done?_

Remus Lupin does not tell Sirius Black that he loves him.

But then there is graduation and having to search (search _everywhere_ ) for a job and money is tight (to say nothing of his belt) and Sirius is still one of his best mates (the four of them, best mates as always) and has this empty room in his tiny, ramshackle flat in the heart of London and (rather more often than he feels good about) there is a tipsy Sirius declaring, _Moony, you are far to pissed to Aperate_ , 

and, 

_Nah, James. Lily’s gonna have a hard enough time dealing with just you. He c’n crash at my place_ , 

and 

_No, Moony, I wouldn’ hear of it, tossing a mate out into the cold, cruel world when there’s ‘n empty bed at my flat._

_(Sirius, you can be more than a bit dramatic, Remus drunkenly opines because it's not cold, even if it is sometimes cruel.)_

But Sirius says, _Here we are, Moony (Merlin! You know, you weigh an awful lot for such a skinny werewolf!) Jus’ lay down there and here, drink this or you’ll feel like you’ve gone mano a mano with the Giant Squid in the morning_ , 

and

 _Morning, Moony! eggs will be done in a tick and kettle’s warming up_.

And sometimes he thinks he still sees Sirius giving him that look (the look from fifth year, before it all went pear shape - all hesitation and wonder and sidelong glances too quick to really mean anything and too often to mean nothing and stirring more sugar into his tea than Remus knows he likes because he’s not paying attention to what he’s doing) when they are sitting across from each other at the breakfast table, arguing over who gets the front page first.

And then eventually (inevitably) there is one night when he is maybe not as pissed as usual, and Sirius is just standing there staring when he finishes his hangover potion, and Remus, who is sitting on the edge of the guest bed (his bed, he might as well admit) stands up to press the cup into his hands, and, and then there are lips pressing lightly, beautifully to his and, _Oh!_ (he suspects later that he actually moaned) and Sirius’ hands cup his face, gently, like holding a bird’s egg, like holding something precious and wonderful and fragile. 

Remus will later think to say, _Sirius, I am definitely not fragile_ , but right now it is perfect because it tells him that Sirius will be careful this time, means it this time, and that’s all he really wanted.

But Sirius pulls back, blushing and stumbling all over himself to apologize, _Sorry, sorry, sorry! You’re drunk Moony, and it’s not fair of me_ – 

Remus interrupts him with another kiss. _Then just sleep here next to me and we’ll see about that in the morning_ , and if there’s not a little tension between them when Sirius obliges to slip beneath Remus’ sheets, then it’s a nice sort of tension, all pleasant and achy and thrumming with the thought of ridding it so very soon. In the meantime he has Sirius curled around him like a snake on a tree branch (except with more, somewhat pointy, limbs) until morning.

Sirius wakes him with a kiss (which is a bit annoying as its how Remus himself had intended to wake his bedmate, but Sirius woke up first – or possibly never even slept) and from his expression Remus thinks that he has done this just to prove to himself that Remus is really, really real. (Remus knows the feeling.)

Remus kisses Sirius back.

Then Remus Lupin makes love to Sirius Black (carefully and, yes, a bit awkwardly and maybe not as slowly as he’d dreamed because this is a fantasy come true, after all, and he didn’t know Sirius was so ticklish or that he groaned so very thrillingly or that Sirius Black keeps his eyes opened and fixed on Remus’ when he comes in four spurts all over both their stomachs, and shudders and whispers _Remus! Remus!_ as he does like it will grant him salvation.)

And then they eat eggs and toast and argue over who gets to read the front page first while they drink their tea and really it’s a lot like every other morning except when Remus catches Sirius giving him one of those looks (the one from bed this morning, when they were both covered in sweat and other fluids, and grinning like fools and Remus had let slip, _I… I love you, Padfoot_ , into the curve of Sirius’ shoulder and Sirius had given him back this look of shy awe – as if Remus had personally caused the sun to shine) Remus holds his gaze and smiles just the same way back.

But there is war. War, just the sound of it causes Remus to taste blood in his mouth, smell dirt and sewage and hunger on the breeze like a disease as he treks through slums and forests, cities and mountains, doing all he can do for Dumbledore, for the man who gave him his chance at a decent life and for all the things that Hogwarts stands for - but secret, secret, because Remus’ strength has always been in what he’s not told, in the things he’s kept to himself, not shown others, and Dumbledore knows this.

Sirius is smart. Sirius knows why he cannot talk about his missions. Sirius knows that he is working for the Order. He has to know. And anyway, that trip to Paris last month really was about a writing job. He refuses to outright lie to his lover.

But this time he is too good at keeping secrets because Sirius starts to give him these looks like Remus has attacked him, like Remus has betrayed him, and they’re just little looks, here and there – not all the time, not at all, because there is still some sort of normalcy. There is still breakfast and tea with whomever nabs the front page first, and drinking with their friends down at the pub every Friday night and Wednesday when they can all make it, and then one night James has, _Great news, Marauders! I’m going to be a father! Lily’s pregnant!_ and Remus thinks that maybe, just maybe they will survive this with their little unit of friends and family, with his and Sirius’ not-really-so-new relationship, at least somewhat in tact.

Remus has always been rather good at lying to himself.

Baby Harry (or ickle Prongsie, as Sirius dubs him) is born, and the suspicions grow bigger, the lines of friendship tighter, and Remus is doing all he can to keep from talking to Sirius about his ( _Suicide, Moony! Can’t you see that you’re killing yourself? You need to rest!_ ) missions because suspicious or not, Sirius is worried for him, and furious at whomever and whatever is driving Remus both away from him and to an early grave. Remus’ ribs are frighteningly evident. He pulls the odd grey hair out of his brush in the mornings.

He’s so very tired.

Remus is sure Sirius is on their side. He’s also sure of James, and it couldn’t be Peter or Lily. Remus is so sure. He wants to tell Sirius, tell him everything, but it scares him because even in fifth year, when he loved Sirius so blindly, he never felt like this before, and what if, what if, what if….

Sirius would take on the whole world bare handed if it meant protecting the ones he loves, would most likely murder in cold blood for those few he deems worthy, and Remus, who has spent the better part of his life fighting instincts such as these fears Sirius, just a little bit, just enough. He doesn’t think his lover will harm him (No, not Padfoot. Not ever) but Snape was lucky to escape with his life never mind still fully human that one time, and that was just a thoughtless (He never _thinks_! It drives Remus ‘round the twist!) selfish, prank.

Remus doesn’t tell Sirius.

Harry grows older and crawls and then walks a few steps and starts to say a few words - _Mummy_ and _Da_ and _binky_ and Sirius somehow becomes _Seewus_ and Remus has never seen Sirius so proud of anything before, not even his motorcycle, as he is of Harry.

But there is a prophecy, a dreadful, stupid prophecy, and the Potters have to run, have to hide. They hide in the middle of London, they hide in Scotland, they even hide in Wales (and who the hell looks for something that seriously in Wales? That’s the one that scares them the most, he thinks) they hide everywhere – but always, always, there are apparitions of a snake winding it’s way through a skull to follow them.

Remus decides that he absolutely must tell Sirius, tell him that he’s working for the Order, that last week he brought a clan of twelve vampires to, if not their side, at least reject Voldemort. Tell him about how he lies awake at night in whatever backroom or stable or, once, a fire escape, he’s managed to bargain for himself in whatever gods-forsaken country Dumbledore and the Order have sent him to, and dreams about walking with Sirius out in the sunlight, about playing with Padfoot in autumn leaves, about tea and about Sirius’ long legs wrapping about his waist as he pushes in slow, slow, gloriously slow, _so good, Sirius, so good_.

Remus wants to tell Sirius about how he never dreams about anyone else.

But between Sirius working as much as twenty hour days for the Aurors and Remus gone more days than not out of the week, out of the month; between crashing on the couch together in exhaustion, and fucking on the floor later like animals, Remus bent obscenely over the couch and Sirius pounding in ( _Yes, Sirius! Right – right there! Oh God, oh God, oh God!_ ); between stumbling down to the supermarket at six a. m. because neither of them had been home to buy food, hadn’t even noticed, truth be told, the stench of sour milk or rotten eggs coming from the ice box for the last few weeks; between waking up screaming with nightmares, casting Patronuses reflexively and then shaking in his lover’s arms (if his lover even woke up, even heard the screams through the sheer fatigue) and trying to keep from sobbing; between, between, between. He never finds the time.

Remus doesn’t like to think that it can really get much worse. He likes to think that when it is all over (Gods! When it’s all just over) Sirius will understand, will forgive, and things will go back to being how he had dreamed they could be, years ago, lying awake in the Gryffindor tower and trying not to listen for the sound of Sirius’ fist glidestrokegliding over his cock, trying not to groan as he fisted his own in silent tandem.

Remus lives on dreams and hopes. He will, he _will_ tell Sirius everything.

But then it all goes to hell.

Sirius Black betrays the Potters. Betrays the man who was a brother to him, whose parents took him in when he ran away from his own family. Betrays feisty, sweet-hearted Lily, perhaps the greatest advocate of their relationship. Betrays his own godson. Voldemort comes and kills them, all but baby Harry.

Then Sirius Black kills Peter, innocent Peter who wouldn’t harm a fly. Sirius kills him with a blast that catches twelve nearby muggles, in broad daylight.

Sirius Black.

Remus feels murdered too.

And when not a week later the headlines of the Daily Prophet read: _**Death Eater Sirius Black Sentenced to Azkaban!**_ Remus folds up the paper neatly and leaves it lying on the table, front page unread, tea beside it undrunk. He (calmly, calmly, can’t afford to lose his composure, not now, not now.) floos Dumbledore and asks, _What needs to be done? What can I do?_ and accepts his assignment (Undercover, still Death Eaters out there to track, to kill, to make sure they don’t find baby Harry at his new muggle address) and does. not. cry.

And for twelve years (a lifetime, a lifetime) Remus only sleeps when his body crashes from exhaustion, because in dreams there is still eggs and toast and tea and arguing over who gets the front pages first and maybe, in some small, sorry part of his (ancient, so tired) heart Remus Lupin still loves a man named Sirius Black.


End file.
